This invention relates in general to material handling and more particularly to a machine dislodging items from tightly packed bundles of materials.
A market exists for empty aluminum beverage cans of the type in which beer and soft drinks are sold, because these cans may be melted and converted into high grade aluminum suitable for producing more cans or other aluminum products. Usually an individual brings the cans to a recycling center where they are collected in large quantities. The recycling center or a later processor flattens the cans and then compresses them into bales which measure approximately 4 ft.times.4 ft.times.5 ft and have a density of between 15 and 20 lbs/ft.sup.3. The bales are transported to a smelter where they are broken apart and introduced into a furnace.
Of course the bales themselves are much too large to be introduced as a whole into the furnace, and as a consequence the cans must be separated from them and fed gradually into the furnace. Heretofore, breaking the bales down has to a large measure been a manual operation. As such it is expensive, and much worse the flattened cans do not totally separate, so that more often than not clumps of cans are fed into the furnace. These clumps, although they eventually melt, disrupt the operation of the furnace in that they tend to create heat sinks and interfere with furnace mixing equipment. It is much more desirable to feed totally separated cans into the charging well of a furnace on a generally uniform basis.
Sometimes the flattened cans are immersed in a solvent to remove lacquer before they are introduced into a furnace. In order for the delacquerization process to be effective, the cans must not be compressed together in clumps, but instead must be totally separated.